This time of year, Real Art is a little bit like Santa’s workshop. But we share more in common with the big man than our love for all things red.

You already know a little bit about our Real Art gift exchange, thanks to Justin. We trade names in secret in the fall, but it’s usually a last minute panic attack waiting for things to dry and wrapping gifts in the car on the way to the party. (Creatives are great with the idea and the execution, but there’s no substitute for a deadline breathing down our necks.) Some of our gifts will even end up on Real Mart, for all of you to purchase and enjoy!

How do we celebrate finishing all our gifts—we party! In our second year having the annual bash in our new diggs, we pulled out all the stops. We had a full-out Christmas feast Tiny Tim would be proud of. Complete with a hearty-meal, a well stocked bar and desert table, no trimming was left behind. Our Christmas tree sported a custom fabricated steel base, made here at Real Art in all our “spare time,” no doubt. What can we say, details are our thing. Libby decked the halls and the place was jumpin’ well into the night. Rumor has it, epic dance-offs battled into the wee morning hours. Some photos from the party are below, or you can check out more on our Flickr page.

Lest you think we’re done with Christmas here at Real Art, we can’t wait to show you what’s next—it’s going to be awesome!

The Real Mart Product Brief Series continues! These posts are for anyone who’s especially interested in getting the lowest-level, grittiest look at a given project. For those of you who are like “YES, that’s me,” I’m one of you. I like to see pictures and read about what I’m seeing, so that’s how I’m going to rock this post. Welcome to my behind the scenes look at “GeoStellar”.

The starting point isn’t exactly step 1 though, because this project began where another left off.

Above is the 2009 Real Art Reel base file. I designed this Photo Shop document to be big enough to zoom into with After Effects and maintain great clarity, so it was a perfect starting point for a print project. Trust me, this thing was hi-res as all hell. As a web-designer, it’s not often that I get to work in resolutions higher than 72dpi. But, this was all just a starting point.

Ironically, the real work began in Flash.

I know I just said that it’s a rare treat to work on print projects, and I know Flash is considered a web medium, but I wanted to add some crazy detail that would have taken too long to make by hand.

Instead, I programmed an actionscript app to throw squares onto the stage, move and rotate them in space using FIVe3D, a 3d engine for Flash. I programmed multiple simulations where squares shoot away from a single point at different random rates. Below are some results.

Papervision is the more typical tool to create 3D in Flash, but FIVe3D specializes in vector, which means that the output is editable on a shape-by-shape basis, and can be scaled infinitely without losing quality. Again, perfect for Print.

I took the Real Art Reel file and started adding these 3d Bursts wherever it looked cool.

I tweaked their color and scale because I knew I wanted a really detailed epicenter.

Next, I wanted to add some organic elements to contrast with the digital stuff. I recycled a bunch of hand-drawn sharpie lines from another project to work with.

I threw these organic shapes around among the super precise vector lines. I like the contrast.

I might have gone a little crazy with the detail, but who cares. Along with the random shapes, there’s part of an “n” in there, and some Ohio love.

A big part of the process was finding interesting little moments and adding some effects to make them stand out.

I love the way this turned out. There were so many cool little projects within this project, I knew the end product was going to be personally satisfying. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself – maximalism is the bombb and there’s no such thing as “too much detail” if you’re having fun. One last time, here’s the final piece below. Click for a nice big version. If you love what you see, you can buy an 18″ x 24″ print at Real Mart for $24 bucks.

It’s abrasive, dense and very, very heavy. So why, exactly, would anyone want to work with concrete? Perhaps it’s because nothing says forever like a hunk of concrete, right? I love it. I mean, it is one of the most ancient and most versatile materials out there, which is pretty much the reason that I like it so much. With that said, I thought I’d share a little bit of how I get from a pile of powder, rock and sand to a solid, finessed shape. So here goes.

First of all, in order to get a good-looking result, I found that you need to start with some good materials. That basically meant coming up with my own mixes and recipes for the concrete I used. Since concrete is made up of two basic materials (Portland cement and an aggregate), it wasn’t too hard to get going. So, I experimented with different aggregates. Really, anything with sand works: fine sand, crushed glass, fertilizers, metal…you name it!

Okay, so now I had something to pour into the mold…mold? Yep, a mold (preferably reusable) is what came next. Molds are tricky too because planter molds aren’t like stepping stone molds, where you can just pour and extract. Instead, they have a hollow center that has to be extracted. So I had to keep all of that in mind. In fact, most of my molds start as sketches or diagrams because eventually I have to be able to build it.

Alright, now it’s time for the fun—pouring the concrete! I just mixed up all those dry ingredients with water, poured them into my mold (upside down), gave it a few good shakes to settle things in and waited. Okay, that’s not everything, but it’s close enough.

After I checked the clock a few hundred times—I am not that patient—it was time to remove the piece from its shell. Depending on how well I made that mold, it should come right out. Oh, and don’t think this is the last step, because there is one more, very important thing you have to do before it’s all done. Once the concrete piece is out of the mold, you have to wet it down and keep it moist for a few days. This helps the concrete set up. I mean, the planters I make aren’t in need of a great amount of structural support. I’ve put wire meshes and re-bar in them, but I think that’s a bit over kill for the size and end use. So, once it’s all cured, just clean everything up and repeat.

This may be a little too much “how to” for everyone, but there really isn’t any secret to using a bit of concrete and a mold. It really comes down to perfecting the making process and your own ideas. Personally I really like the idea of creating something that is simple, elegant and timeless. In fact, I don’t even like to use existing objects for mold creation. I really like the idea that every piece I make is unique to me. You can’t just go find a Styrofoam container and repeat the process. Along those lines, I also like the idea of making the molds upside down to get a more square, more perfect end result. Everything you see in the final product was molded on each side as opposed to troweled or smoothed by hand. As I keep developing new molds and new combinations, I keep the idea of simple and elegant in mind. I mean, who said something elegant can’t be elegant and very, very heavy!

It’s that time of year again—The Greater Dayton Advertising Association’s Hermes Awards. A time to look back on all the work we’ve done collectively over the past year and a time to go out on the town to socialize with over 300 fellow Dayton area creative, marketing and advertising professionals. This year’s event was held at the Dayton Masonic Center and featured a moving video tribute to one of Dayton’s long-time and best loved designer, teacher and friend, Dan Johnson. In memory of Dan, GDAA and DCS have renamed the Student award as the “Dan Johnson Award”. This year the award was presented to three students: Real Art’s own interactive intern, Tyler Spahr, Anthony Wartinger and Reka Juhasz

2010 turned out to be a special year for Real Art as we were presented with a total of 29 awards. The unprecedented haul included a triple crown of Interactive Media awards for a total of nine Gold Addy’s or coveted “Hermes heads” and two overall “judges awards” which will all automatically move on to the American Advertising Federation’s 5th District competition covering Ohio, Kentucky, and West Virginia. The District winners will then move on to the national ADDY Awards in June.

Gold Addy’s were awarded to Real Art for the following categories and pieces:

Its finally here, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! Real Mart is open for business. After months and months of planning and talking and lots of hard work by many Real Arters, we are finally launching our very own store. It is very exciting to add this to the list of amazing things Real Art has done and we hope it becomes a major success and continues to be lots of fun. So, tell your friends and family to shoprealmart.com. And keep thinking about what you want to sell next!